


home

by hawkass (eversingingleaves)



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Mental Instability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eversingingleaves/pseuds/hawkass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint Barton does what he does best.<br/>He runs.</p><p>Warnings for the following: Major Character Death, Grief, Mental Instability, Survivor's Guilt, Self-destruction</p>
            </blockquote>





	home

Clint is conveniently on the other side of the world when they hold the funeral for one Agent Phillip Coulson, killed in action, awarded highest honors. Clint is putting a bullet through the brain of a sex trafficker in Thailand when they lower the casket- mahogany, with simple, elegant lines- into the ground and his sister lets the first shovelful of dirt fall into the empty space that gapes back at the crowd.

_Memento Mori_ it seems to say, that empty darkness of only six feet but might as well be a hellmouth for all it threatens every mortal, but the fearless who have gathered in the memory of the man pretend not to hear it.

Clint is running when the final flower is laid on the small humped mound; Clint is running still even when he returns to the shitty hostel rented under a new alias. Clint is running as he peels off the body armor and washes the sweat from his face, even as the assembled mourners shuffle to a strikingly appropriate reception at Stark Tower- a sign of respect from its owner.

Even if he stays still- not that he can, not with this _much_ thrumming through him- Clint is fleeing the truth of death and loss. It is the most final way he can be left, the most permanent way in which Clint can be alone again.

He’s not really sure how he ended up at this empty lot at midnight in a backwater town in Iowa; the concussion still plays with his cognition occasionally and the lingering traces of magic are voices he tries to avoid. They’re thankfully silent now.

The first place he called home is just as dead as the last, but the burned timbers have none of the graceful lines nor the just-barely-controlled hint of satisfaction in a voice over the comm link. The hulking mass rising in the darkness doesn’t hum or buy donuts on long car trips to places unknown. Clint can barely remember what the place used to look like; whenever he thinks of home, all he can hear is a dark brown voice in his ear.

_Talk to me, Barton_.


End file.
